业务分析被定义为组织用来基于数据和统计数据深入了解其业务以推动业务计划的技能，技术，应用程序和流程的组合。随着技术不断促进组织测量，收集和保留更多数据，公司面临着挑战，要从中获得意义。业务分析提供了一套可解决此类问题的分析工具。尽管长期以来一直使用统计和运营研究来使企业做出客观决策，但业务分析使用这些工具以及模式检测等其他工具来查找数据中的含义。毫不夸张地说，每个中等规模的企业都在使用业务分析，或者为了保持竞争力必须这样做。
Business analytics is defined as the combination of skills, technologies, applications, and processes used by organizations to gain insight into their business based on data and statistics to drive business planning. As technology continues to facilitate organizations to measure, collect and retain more data, companies are challenged to make sense out of it. Business analytics provides a set of analytical tools that answers such problems. While statistics and operations research have long been used to allow businesses to make objective decisions, business analytics uses these tools, plus others like pattern detection to find meaning in the data. It is no exaggeration to state that every business of moderate size is either using business analytics or will have to in order to stay competitive.